


Joey Drew, What Happened to You

by zara2148



Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: And then it goes canon divergent, Body Horror, Dark secrets at the cartoon studio, Emotional Manipulation, Gen, Henry's life is suffering, Joey-is-Bendy AU, Not really romantic, Specifically Joey, Spoilers for Chapter 2, Their relationship is important to the fic and both are kind of obsessive about the other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-22
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-10-22 10:55:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10695570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zara2148/pseuds/zara2148
Summary: Joey is unhinged and inked up. Henry has to deal with this.





	1. The Illusion of Living was only the beginning

**Author's Note:**

> So this is based on the completely awesome joeybendydrew.tumblr.com. Check out their comics if you haven't.
> 
> This will probably be horribly jossed by future episodes, but I love the AU and game too much to not contribute.
> 
> Also, I know how Scooby Doo-ish the title is. I don't care. Things are going to get awful, let me have my funny title.

Sweat was pouring down Henry’s face as the sound of Sammy’s screams faded away, cut off as mercilessly as you’d splice a film reel.

He was hacking away at the boards in front of him, not caring where the hallway went as long as it was away.

Away from the circles on the floor, the creepy cutouts, the inky blobs and whatever it was that had gotten Sammy.

Then, what was not the worst thing to happen to him today but was still something altogether horrible, occurred.

His axe broke, the head snapped off the handle. Just before the final board in his way, hanging in front of his eyes.

Of course. He was an animator, not a lumberjack. He had no idea how he should be swinging an axe. He’d just been striking out forcefully at the boards and whatever came too close for comfort.

He sighed and ducked under the final board. In the semi-darkness ahead, he could make out a door surrounded, of course, by ink.

He jumped right in – his pants were ruined anyway, by all the other ink pools he’d waded through today.

Forget an ink pump, he’d bash that door in with his head if that’s what it took to get to out of here.

But that thought, grumbled in the safety of his mind, was wiped away as the ink moved in front of him.

That… thing he’d seen between the boards upstairs, that had reached for him, splotched into being before him.

“Henry,” it gurgled, it’s pitch squeaky high. What could technically be a hand reached out for him. Again.

It was happening again.

He was too petrified to scream, but contrary to his mouth his legs remembered how to work just fine. He backed up quickly, too quickly, forgetting the ink around him and ready to suck him in.

He lost his footing, fell, the ink splashing and squelching and covering more of his body in its blackness.

And still his instincts screamed to run, all four of his limbs working to backpedal away. But the squelching suction thwarted his attempts to move.

The creature lowered its now shaking hand to its side. Despite the lack of eyes, Henry felt its attention, its awareness, focus on him. A frustrated growl escaped the still smiling mouth.

“Why do you keep running away? Why do you always run away?!”

Its entire body was shaking now, its voice a screech.

“We made this place together! WHY DO YOU KEEP LEAVING?!”

Made… together…?

It couldn’t be. He’d gotten the phone call, he’d seen the body, he’d followed the letter to find what the studio contained, knowing it was all too late…

It was still too late. But the possibility couldn’t be ignored, any more than he could his reality.

“Joey…” he breathed.

And it could be. He’d seen Sammy, only recognized him by the voice. But there was nothing, not even the voice, to recognize Joey in this.

The inky hands balled into fists. “I’m Bendy now.”

Henry wasn’t trying to get up, not anymore, wasn’t trying to get away. Those 30 years stretched out in a chasm between them, and it was all too clear how unbridgeable a divide it was.

He was too late, too late.

“Joey,” he tried again. “What happened?”

The inky smile, ever fixed, widened slightly.

“My dream came true.”


	2. Ink Incarnate that's sinning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Really, they're both kind of crazy.

“Joey, please,” Henry pleaded, lifting a hand out of the inky muck in supplication. “Talk to me. Tell me what’s happened here.”

Ink wasn’t running down Joey’s form, so much as it seemed to be falling off of him. Yet there seemed to be something solid, skinnish beneath.

“Why do you think you get to ask what happened? You’re the one who left this place.” Joey closed in on him with a couple of steps, the ink around them sloshing. “Yet you show up here, halfway through the show and ask the audience what you missed.”

A hiss as Joey pressed in, that smile still on his face. “And I told you, my name is Bendy now.”

Henry lowered his hand, using it to push himself up instead. He wasn’t in a blind panic anymore (despite the scarily similar fluttering feeling in his chest) so his movements came easier. “Joey…”

A glare. Somehow, lacking eyes and without losing that smile, Joey was glaring at him. Might just be in the sudden stiffness of the ink, how it seemed to freeze at the name.

“All right _, Bendy.”_ And god, it burned his mouth to say that. But the creature-who-wouldn’t-be-Joey smiled wider, the glare dropped.

“Look… I came back. Because you wrote to me.”

“So you did.” The voice was softer now, still high but no longer squeaky. The creature, no the man, turned away from Henry to the boarded-up area around them.

“Yes.” As Joey (because that was who he was, no matter what he said) shifted away, now Henry moved closer. He hesitated, and then placed a hand on his arm. The impossibly long, thin arm.

While the body did feel like skin underneath his own, it was chilled like a corpse. Cold and hard, like old, dried up ink.

“Please. You reached out to me. Let me help you.”

He was still, listening to Henry’s words. The wet ink covering his body was trickling down, slowly covering Henry’s hand.

“We could go to… crap, I don’t know. Not the police. Maybe a scientist or something could help you.”

Joey’s body was frozen underneath his touch, then it rippled as that smile was turned back onto Henry.

“Mmm, no. I can’t have you do that.” And Joey moved away. “I can’t have you go.”

“Wh – “ And then, an inky fist met his face. He was knocked into the wall, his body sliding down to meet the inky pool.

It was hard to separate from the ink’s sloshes and the faint rumbles of the machine, but Henry thought he caught a whisper of “I’m not ready. I can’t be seen yet.”

And for the third time in as many hours, Henry lost consciousness.

* * *

He came to with a pounding headache, his surroundings blurred. As his vision refocused, he saw he was back in the same room where Sammy had tied him up. It even felt like the same pole against his back.

Joey-Bendy was leaning over him, with that twisted rictus still on his face. Henry felt pressure constricting him, and he looked down to see inky, black bonds wrapped around him, pinning his arms to his sides. They moved as if alive.

He didn’t expect to bust through those any time soon.

Henry’s eyes sought for where Joey’s would have been.

“What happened to Sammy?” was the first question out of his mouth. Maybe it was just being back here, maybe “Why the hell did you tie me up?” should have been first.

The grin dulled without being lessened. “He called you a sheep, Henry. Treated you like a sacrifice.”

Henry’s gaze didn’t waver. “You’re not answering my question. Tell me what happened to Sammy.”

Joey straightened up, towering more so over Henry. A sigh escaped him, but the grin seemed strangely brighter. “Sammy’s fine, Henry. He’s all right. I locked him in his sanctuary. He’s not getting out of there any time soon, trust me.”

Henry would be lying if he said that wasn’t a relief. “And what was with that dissected Boris upstairs?” He probed further, willing away the memory of stumbling upon it.

“Ah, that.” The inky head hung in what might have been shame. “Henry… you must realize that Sammy, well… he hasn’t been well for a while now. I’d.. I’d rather not talk about it.”

“Joey, that’s not good enough. What the hell’s been going on around here? Are you telling me Sammy’s behind all this?” He jerked his chin at their surroundings.

“Things… may have gotten out of control, after you left.”

“Out of control?” Henry’s eyebrows climbed. “May have? Joey, I think you need to come back to reality.”

The ink flowing down Joey’s body started bubbling, and his hands fisted again.

“Why is that all anyone ever tells me?” he hissed. “Why do THEY get to decide how things should be?”

“Joey,” he said softly, soothingly, even as he pressed his body against the post behind him. As the man before him strided about in agitation, eyelessly glaring again, this time at nothing and everything.

His being seemed to break down, what had been a molasses trickle now gathering speed, his footfalls making squishy sounds rather than anything more solid. Ink started seeping up from between the floorboards, flooding the area.

“Joey, please,” Henry tried to break through with his calm. “You’re right. I don’t know what happened here,” and frankly he didn’t want to. Imagining it was enough, how Sammy would have lost his mind and unleased this.. this hellscape.

Joey stopped, his face angled in a sightless side-eye. “No, you have no idea what happened after you left.” But the ink slowed its flooding and flowing.

Silence stretched before them, just as the last 30 years stretched behind them. Not even the whirrs of the machine could be heard now, only the occasional inky plop from their surroundings. 

Both of them stood frozen now.

That show of agitation aside, Joey did seem better here than he had in the other room. He was responding to his name, no longer insisting he was Bendy. He was answering questions coherently, if not quite rationally.

What had Sammy put him and everyone else here through? Had Henry’s earlier offer of help frightened him?

And still, despite it all, Joey was here.

He was right here, in front of Henry. Tears were coming to Henry’s eyes now, only to be quickly blinked away. When he arrived at the old studio, he thought he’d never see his best friend again, that it was too late to mend things past.

But it wasn’t too late. He wouldn’t let it be too late.

He was still sightlessly eyeing Henry, an element of appraisal in his attention.

“Joey, could you please untie me?”

“No.”

Henry was the kind of guy who had once intended to make a living out of drawing the same thing over and over, only slightly different each time. He’d seen war, here and elsewhere.

And he was kind of old. All those things taught a man patience.

It came in handy now.

“Okay,” he said, his tone in full soothing affect. “Why?”

Joey still looked down at him, _into_ him somehow, his grin unwavering. “Because you were going to leave. And tell about me.”

Fine, yes. Henry could see how that might be a concern, visions of villagers killing Frankenstein playing in his head.

“I’m sorry. If you’re scared about what others would do, I won’t say a thing.”

A head tilt, and Joey’s smile widened as if Henry had said something funny.

“But please, Joey, I want to help you. Untie me, and we can fix this together.”

The ink on Joey’s forehead crested, in mimicry of how Henry had raised eyebrows at him.

“You won’t run away?”

“No. Please, Joey. I really do want to help.”

Ink was still oozing around them, slowly rising up Henry’s body. Not fast enough to be a concern, but fast enough to be noticeable.

It started lapping at his inky bonds, and then the ties that held him fast just melted away.

Joey walked over to him, his sounds now footsteps instead of squishes as the dark pool offered no resistance against him. An inky hand was held out.

Henry took it. The touch was cold but the grip was firm as it pulled him up, and held on perhaps just a touch too long before pulling away.

Strangely, despite it being what Joey was made of and what had happened the last time he touched Joey, not a drop of ink from him was left on Henry’s hand. Most of Henry was still splotched with ink, though, dried and fresh. So a little bit more would hardly be noticeable.

Funny. Both of were covered in the stuff.

A shower for him could wait. So much could wait.

Henry smiled at him. Joey was still smiling, had never stopped smiling throughout all of this.

“So, how can I help?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you thought that was too easy, congrats! You have sharp instincts.
> 
> Yes, I know it's Frankenstein's monster. But I don't think Henry would know that, so I used the misconception.


End file.
